Amazon and Google popularity drops in 2012

Amazon and Google have seen their popularity drop after being accused of
avoiding paying millions of pounds in tax.

Google dropped out of the top 10 altogether from the annual 'buzz' list of businessesPhoto: REUTERS

By Wesley Johnson, Home Affairs Correspondent

6:29PM GMT 27 Dec 2012

The annual list of businesses with the biggest “buzz” showed Amazon slipped from first to third and Google dropped out of the top 10 altogether, the BrandIndex table by YouGov showed.

A different set of 2,000 people every day were asked whether they had heard anything good or bad about brands through advertising, the media or word of mouth and scores were given for the number of positive mentions less the negative ones.

Amazon dropped from 32.1 points to 24.1 while Google fell from 26.7 to 11.7.

Sarah Murphy, director of BrandIndex, said both brands suffered from the “tax avoidance debate”.

“Amazon and Google began to take a hit around the time of the parliamentary hearings,” she said.

Related Articles

“But Google had been slipping already after causing outrage when it changed its privacy policy earlier this year.”

Multinationals such as Google and Amazon have faced heavy criticism from MPs and campaigners in recent months for using legal ploys to reduce their tax bills such as diverting their profits to low tax jurisdictions.

Google, for example, channels almost £2.5bn of UK sales through Ireland each year, most of which ends up in Bermuda.

The web giant says it complies with tax law in every country in which it operates but that it also has an obligation to its shareholders to run its business “efficiently".